


Cat and Mouse

by writerwisegirl



Series: In a hole in the ground.... [3]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, First Meetings, Gen, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, The Hobbit References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 20:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16374200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerwisegirl/pseuds/writerwisegirl
Summary: Natasha runs from the Red Room and finally meets Clint





	Cat and Mouse

**Author's Note:**

> This ones at 4am wow! Also I’d like to say that this whole story is ultimately a vent pice for me. I write it when I’m feeling down and don’t usually edit a ton. This one was written at 4am in the span of about an hour and is completely unedited. Please be nice. K thanks bye

It was late and Natalia didn’t know what she was doing anymore. She had run, weeks ago, in the middle of a mission. (Why did she do that? She knew they would find her. Why would she run?) She was alone now, in a way she hadn’t been for….a long time. She wasn’t sure what was missing, just that something was. (Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was curled up in a hole. It felt significant somehow, but she didn’t know why.) She had run all the way to the desert, and she felt like she was looking for something. Something she had been looking for for a long time. And she had thought, for some reason, that maybe the sand would help? But it didn’t. It was dry and scratchy, and there was nowhere to sit. So, she dug a hole. And climbed in. And that felt better, but it still wasn’t right. It was as close as she could get though, so she lay there and looked up at the stars. They were nice, she thought. Cold, and distant, but nice. They made her feel...small. Safe.

Natalia stayed in her hole for two days. Then she stood up because this wasn’t right, there was something important and she couldn’t remember it. She stood up. And she walked for hours, until she found a small town. She spoke the language because of course she did. She got directions to the next big city (She couldn’t remember the name, and that should worry her, because the Black Widow doesn’t forget anything, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.) She walked again, because she didn’t have money for transportation, and yes, she was well aware that she could easily steal whatever she might need, but she had a vague feeling that she didn’t want to. So she walked, and on the second day, she found herself staring at a new skyline. (It was funny because she thought she had been here before, but that might have been a long time again, what year was it anyway?)

She was there for about a month before she knew something was wrong. She could feel something, no, someone, following her. She wasn’t doing anything, really. She went about a daily routine, she cleaned her weapons in the morning, then she ate something. She wasn’t sure what, it all tasted the same. In the afternoon she left the little apartment she was squatting in to look for work. She had taken a few odd mercenary jobs in the last few weeks and was quickly earning a reputation. (She got the job done and she got it done fast.) So she got more work. Enough to pay for the food she ate and for more ammunition for her variety of weapons. The presence she felt didn’t seem to be malicious, and she came to find she didn’t really mind its’ company. It just watched her. That wasn’t so bad. It was almost nice. She killed it anyway. (The Black Widow did not take kindly to being watched.)

A week later Natalia was in another city, on another continent. (Just not Russia, never Russia.) She stayed there a grand total of three days. Because on the second day the presence was back. She killed this one too. (But not before she got information. She found out who it was that was after her. It was SHIELD. She had heard of them. Run a few missions to take down some of their operatives. She didn’t like them any more than she liked the Red Room.) She continued to run.

*****

Another city, another kill. She had been playing this game of cat and mouse with SHIELD for almost a year now. It was getting annoying. They were getting in the way of her search for….something. She still wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for, but she knew that it wasn’t this incessant game they played. If they would just leave her alone, maybe she could remember. (Why couldn’t she remember?) But no. They just had to keep trying to find her.

They started actively trying to kill her a month later. (It didn’t matter, not really, she could still kill their people just as easily.)

After another month she broke. She climbed on a rooftop and waited. Not ten minutes later someone else was standing behind her. (She wanted to tell him he was late, but she didn’t. SHe had stopped talking six months into their game. Nothing she said felt right.) She could hear the groan of his bow as he pulled it back and she nearly scoffed. (A weapon out of time, but somehow appropriate. She felt like a villain from one of the movies the Red Room used to show her, finally meeting her end at arrow point.)

“Any last words?” The man asked, startling her. She wasn’t expecting that. (She wasn’t expecting to be treated like a person.) Somehow, that small gesture of kindness (she second she had been shown in her memory) was enough. (Somehow she could remember now.)

So Natalia did what she always did. She told her story.

“In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.” She told him, and this seemed to startle him even more than his words did her. The bow groaned again as he loosened his grip. Then he walked forward and sat down next to her on the edge of the roof.

“What happened to the hobbit?” He asked carefully.

“I don’t know.” She admitted. “I never found out.”

“I could help you find out,” The man offered, standing up and holding out a hand. “Just come with me.” He spoke again when she hesitated. “Do you have a name?” He asked quietly.

She thought for a moment before answering. “Natasha.” She told him, as she took his hand. “And, I would like that.”

*****

The first thing the man-Clint-did when they got out of SHIELD was take her a used bookstore and buy her a copy of The Hobbit. And Natasha learned. First, she learned the ending to her story. Then, she learned to be a person.

 

_Nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing to sit down on or eat;_

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, I’m writing to stop myself from being an idiot and doing something I’d regret in the morning. We’ll see if it works. Please comment as it makes me happy and helps me see where you guys want this story to go. Thanks, Liz


End file.
